Millers Crossing Essays - Marian Devotions, Christian Prayer, Rosary

Miller's Crossing This Is Your Brain on Crime The movie Millers Crossing and the novel Legs by William Kennedy have two characters that have a special quality, which adds dramatically to their characterization. The main character of Millers Crossing, Tom Reagan, and the main character from Legs; Jack Diamond shares many similar traits and symbolic equivalence. In particular they had an item that they wore or carried, and this item had the ability to show what is going on inside the characters mind. Not only did the items have the ability to tell what was on their mind; it also has the ability to foreshadow. At times in the novel where their mind/conscience was tested, the use of their items determined the outcome. The body can not live without the mind, so it is important for the characters to remain close to these items that symbolize their mind or they will surly die. Tom Reagan had a dream in which his hat fell off his head and the wind blew it away. He did not run after the hat in the dream. However in reality he kept the hat close to him at all costs. The dream is the opening to the movie and is explained during a conversation with Verna. During the movie he is seen with the hat and without. The trend his hat wearing follows with when engaging in sex it is off, and actually gets its own scene of being thrown on to a chair or something of that nature. For the most part, it is also seen without his hat when something bad is happening to him. According to Cirlot, The hat, since it covers the head, generally takes on the significance of what goes on inside of it (Cirlot 140). When the hat is off, he becomes mindless and driven by evil. From this the viewer can derive that Tom Reagan has a moral conscience which it brought out by the hat, but besides that he has no heart. To change ones hat is equivalent to changing ones mind. At the climatic point of the movie where Bernie begs for his life and asks Tom Reagan to have a heart, he retorts by saying, what heart and put a bullet in his head. The hat is missing from this scene, and is crucial to foreshadowing the events to come. Before at Millers Crossing when he had his hat on, he spared Bernies life, but with the change of the hat, he has transformed into the immoral Tom Reagan and shot Bernie with ease. At the end of the movie he is seen putting his hat back on. This is foreshadowing his return to wholeness, and it is further proven with his denying working with Leo again in business. Jack Diamond is the Gatsby of the gangster era. For the most part the reader sees Diamond as the man who has it all. However there is a mysterious quirk about this man of killing, stealing, and adultery. He carries a Rosary. Jack Diamond has been shot at and engaged in knife fights plenty of times in his life, however he always came out alive. It can be speculated that he carried this Rosary through all of these ordeals. Marcus, the narrator stated, I saw Jack on deck alone after that, with a rosary, the first time I knew he carried one. He was not praying- only staring at it, strung like webbing through his fingers, as if it were a strange, incomprehensible object (Kennedy 91). This Rosary is the source of his thinking, and without it he is lost. Not only is it the source of thinking it also serves as his judgement standard. Jack Diamond was a man that had plenty reason to question his actions and the Rosary was a way to find truth when he wanted to find it. The pervious quote came immediately after Jack Diamond dumped the hot jewels into the ocean. However, the general trend with Jack Diamond was that he is an immoral man. Lack of resorting to the Rosary reflected lack of thinking, which is sure to lead to complicated matters. When Jack's lucky blue suit came back from the hotel cleaners,

Comparison of Nora from A Dolls House by Henrik Ibsen and Elisa from The Chrysanthemums by John Steinbeck

Comparison of Nora from A Dolls House by Henrik Ibsen and Elisa from The Chrysanthemums by John Steinbeck Two female characters Nora from A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen and Elisa from The Chrysanthemums by John Steinbeck have many similar characteristics. Both are women who live with husbands who do not understand them and do not feel the things as women do.Advertising We will write a custom research paper sample on Comparison of Nora from A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen and Elisa from The Chrysanthemums by John Steinbeck specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Both characters are intelligent women who need to change their life, but being brutalized by husbands, they do not know how to improve the life. However, there is also a number of differences in the characters’ behavior. One woman stays in the same place with the same conditions and another does away towards the new happy life. The story of John Steinbeck describes only one day of life of the character, while Henrik Ibsen uses three acts in order to provide the whole p icture and to describe the rise of the conflict in details and its future culmination. One can notice that these two stories and their major female characters are similar, as they both face the similar circumstances; however, on the other hand, Nora and Elisa demonstrate different reactions on the circumstances that married life provides. The play A Doll’s House describes the nature of the relationship between husband and wife. Ibsen as the founder of realist drama uses the ideas, events and characters which are typical in the usual life. According to Goldman, the main ideas of this play are â€Å"the Social Lie and Duty† (1914). Ibsen provides the description of the social duty of woman in a home as the sacred institution. In the world ruled by men the place of women is at home. Some of people willingly accept this way; however, for other people such way of life can be a complicated challenge. The female character, Nora, seems deeper and more intelligent than her husb and Torvald. The woman has many ideas, dreams and hopes; she wants to have better life and feels that all this routine of married life with Torvald kills her personality. She sees that her husband is not that person that she imagined. He is narcissistic and does not care about Nora, children or home. Nora’s enthusiasm does not allow her to be a simple house wife, a doll of her husband. Obviously, there are many women who can accept such way of life; however, Nora is not one of them. She is not a doll and she cannot live with someone who considers her as a doll, as a toy. Nora’s life seems complicated and painful. However, she struggles for her happiness. On the other hand, many people can say that in this situation Torvald is the real victim.Advertising Looking for research paper on comparative literature? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More It may be complicated to comprehend how woman could leave her chil dren; however, for Nora, such method seems only one and right solution. She wants to survive in this world and to start the life from the new page. Ibsen does not provide the ideas about Nora’s future and what she is going to do, where to go and how to life. Nevertheless, the author emphasizes an importance of the personal choice in spite of life of a doll. A short story The Chrysanthemums describes a life of a strong and proud Elisa Allen. Although this woman has the outstanding principles, intellect, she is kind and well-behavior, her life is full of frustration and even sorrow. She cannot have a child and her husband loses his interest toward Elisa as a woman. Only one good thing she has is her garden where the woman can cultivate the chrysanthemums. In this context, the flower is a symbol of every woman who feels frustrated and lonely. Devoting all the energy to the house and garden, Elisa is unable to find more interesting business that could draw her attention, to bring more color to her life. Although the flowers are beautiful and make the life brighter, they are not humans; they cannot provide the same feeling, emotions or help to develop the life. Elisa is ignored and lost in her own home. The evident mood of this story is the total melancholy. The first sentence is a bright demonstration of this statement: â€Å"The high gray-flannel fog of winter closed off the Salinas Valley from the sky and from all the rest of the world† (Steinbeck). The city of the heroes is closed from all the world as well as Elisa is closed in her house. It is the story of the desperate house wife where a happy-end seems like an incredible miracle. One can see the similarities between the image of Elisa and Nora, because both women are intelligent, passionate and unsatisfied by the life that they have to maintain. Both of the characters care about their home. Thus, Elisa’s home is â€Å"hard-swept and hard-polished† (Steinbeck), while Nora’s   Ã¢â‚¬Å"room furnished comfortably and tastefully, but not extravagantly† (Ibsen). Both of the stories take place in winter. In this context, the season can be considered as a symbolical expression of mood o the characters. However, if Elisa’s winter may last for a long time, Nora tries to reach the spring of her existence. Perhaps, the life of Nora seems more interesting, because she has children, friends and one man is even in love with her. At the same time, Elisa seems absolutely lonely and her only friends are flowers. She gets an opportunity express herself only in the conversation with the tinker. However, when this man disappears, Elisa feels even worse than before. Sweet indicates that after the meet with tinker, Elisa â€Å"becomes more and more feminine† (212). At the beginning, Nora and Torvald seem normal and happy family.Advertising We will write a custom research paper sample on Comparison of Nora from A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibs en and Elisa from The Chrysanthemums by John Steinbeck specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More The author describes their every-days life in details. On the other hand, the beginning of The Chrysanthemums seems already melancholic and cold. It is possible to suppose that Elisa’s married life is full of problems. However, such fast way of determining the problem is caused by the characteristics of a genre of the short story, in spite of play, where the author has the space and time to describe the conflict slowly, preparing the readers for the culmination. Nora and Elisa demonstrate different reaction on the crisis. While Elisa collapses and gives up, Nora leaves her family and believes in the better future and changes in her own life. Nora does not want to help her husband. She understands that if he did not want to change something in their life before, he will never do it. Therefore, being a clever and intelligent woman, she finds the solu tion and abandons her family before she will lose herself and lose her dreams. Such culmination seems unusual for 19th century. Analysis of the cultural background demonstrates that women’s role in the West was simple and all house wives were mostly dependent on their family and especially on their husbands (Mayer 8). On the other hand, Elisa cannot find enough straights to make an important step. She loses her ability to reflect rationally. The ends of two stories are absolutely different. Elisa does not want to argue with her husband and turns up her collar, crying like an old woman. One day of Elisa’s life can be compared with all her life. The reader can suppose that every day of Elisa is the same as the one described in the story. At the end of A Dolls’ House, Nora turns back on the family and goes away, choosing her own road in this world and making a step forward the new life. Analyzing the stories A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen and Elisa from The Chrysanthemums by John Steinbeck, one can see the different reactions and responses to the problems and various challenges that married life provides. Although the major characters of two stories have the similar circumstances, the culminations of their problems are different. One woman decides to leave her husband and children, while another continues suffering. It is obvious that both authors sympathize their female characters; however, they choose different solutions for them. It is natural that people react in the different way as we all have different characteristics, emotional range, experience and communicational skills. Some people prefer to fight and to improve their life. They know when to stop and make a step. Nora is an example of such personality. Vice versa, Elisa shows an example of an opposite personality, a woman who cannot decide how to solve the problems and to develop her life.Advertising Looking for research paper on comparative literature? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Goldman, Emma. The Social Significance of the Modern Drama. Boston: Richard g. Barger, 1914. Web. lib.berkeley.edu/goldman/. Ibsen, Henrik. A Doll’s House. Gutenberg.org. Web.. Mayer, Laura Reis. Henrik Ibsen: A Doll’s House: A Teacher’s Guide to the Signet Classics Edition. US: Penguin Books, 2008. Print. Steinbeck, John. The Chrysanthemums. Web.. Sweet, Charles A. Jr. â€Å"Mr. Elisa Allen and Steinbeck’s â€Å"The Chrysanthemums.† Modern Fiction Studies. Ed. William T. Stafford and Margaret Church. Vol. 20. West Lafayette: Purdue University, 1974. 210-214. Print.

Metereology Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Metereology - Essay Example When a body of air rises, it moves from higher pressure to lower pressure. In so doing it must expand, and as it does so, its temperature is reduced. One can calculate the amount of cooling to be expected when the air is lifted by a fixed amount. If the air is dry and no heat is added or taken away as the air ascends, it cools at the rate of 1.0C per 100 meters. This is known as the dry adiabatic lapse rate. Once a cloud has begun to form, the cooling effects caused by the expansion of the rising air are partially offset by the heat released during the condensation process. Evaporation causes cooling. When condensation occurs, the reverse is true; heat is added. If the rate of ascent of air, which may be called the updraft speed (Sloane and Tesche 1991), is quite high, the air may cool so fast that condensation cannot proceed fast enough to keep the air at saturation. In this case the air may become supersaturated. The equations show that once this happens the smaller droplets grow m ore rapidly than the large ones. The final condition is one with clouds having a narrow range of droplet sizes. The main processes which influences cloud formation are condensation or deposition (Brasseur et al 1999). The difference in temperature always causes a difference in atmospheric pressure, which in turn causes the wind. When the resulting winds are confined to small areas, not more than a few miles in extent, they blow directly from high pressure to low pressure, as one would expect. Weather front can be identified as a boundary between air masses of hot and cold air (Brasseur et al 1991). The main types of fronts are cold front and warm front, stationary front and occluded front. The typical wind circulation about a well-developed low or a well-developed stationary high is often useful in predicting lower-level winds. Several hundred feet above the ground, these circulatory winds blow nearly parallel to the isobars. Fronts are always described as zones of transition, the types of the front depends upon the direction and air masses (Sloane and Tesche 1991). The cold front, extending southward and southwestward from the low center, is also a wedge of cold air underlying warm air -but an a ctive, undercutting wedge, a steeper wedge than the warm front, a wedge that is steadily advancing eastward and southeastward in such a way as to crowd out the warm air more or less violently and to thrust it aloft. The warm front extends east and southeast from the low center, with the warm sector advancing behind it from the southwest and the colder air retreating slowly ahead of it towards the north (Sloane and Tesche 1991). Occlusion is the combination of warm and cold fronts where the latter has overtaken the former. The occlusion itself usually extends gradually southward as more and more of the warm sector is forced above the surface by the closing wedges of colder air. Stationary front is defined as a front which does not move (Sloane and Tesche 1991). Weather Systems: hurricanes, tornadoes, thunderstorms The term hurricane is usually used to describe tropical storms and cyclones. Also, hurricane can be defined as the strongest level of wind according to the Beaufort scale. Unstable air above these steaming areas of warm and azure sea is continually building up